Berwyn Municipal Parking Garage

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Location: Berwyn, Ill.

Type of Precast: Architectural precast 

Size: 154,000 sq. ft. (13,900 sq. ft. architectural precast)

Design Architect: Douglas R. Walega, Architect, PC
Architect/Engineer:  Walker Parking Consultants
General Contractor: Power Construction Company LLC
Owner: The City of Berwyn

Overview 

Quick Points:

• Architectural precast parking structure evokes Roaring 20s facades
• Thin brick fields with limestone accents integrate garage with streetscape
• Panels erected easily despite limitations of tight urban site

Contents:

Summary

  Downtown revitalization pivots on garage and Roaring 20s precast facade

Aesthetics

  Precast brings the past to life

Building Details

  Elevations integrate with the vernacular

Summary

Downtown revitalization pivots on garage and Roaring 20s precast facade

“When will the contractor complete that apartment building?” asked an architect from a neighboring Chicago suburb. “I keep waiting for the people to move in!” It took a minute for Douglas Walega, the design architect for the Berwyn Municipal Garage, to realize that his friend was referring to the new garage itself.

A Berwyn resident and member of the community’s Historic Preservation Committee, Walega had done preliminary conceptual work on the garage years earlier, and had been asked to develop a design that residents could appreciate. “From the initial design concept stage, it was always our desire to introduce materials reminiscent of the eclectic mixed use buildings of the 1920s to maintain the established historical character,” says Walega. “Precast exceeded our expectations in helping this building look like the vernacular.” Walega’s design was incorporated into the overall plan for the architectural precast parking structure by Walker Parking Consultants, the architect/engineer on the project. According to Betty Murphy, project manager for Walker, “We chose architectural precast to facilitate design and construction schedule.”

Opened in December of 2009, the 154,000-square-foot garage is intended to bring the activity of the street alive and further nurture the revitalized South Berwyn Depot District. The City’s strategy was to replace a commuter surface lot and provide 378 covered parking spaces for commuters who use the Metra commuter rail line station a block away. This would in turn open street parking for shoppers visiting retailers.

Masonry structures with limestone accents are typical within the district. By designing with the same concept and design elements, “architectural precast gave us the design flexibility to integrate this large volume into the surrounding streetscape,” says Walega. “Precast also made it possible to install easily on a tight site,” he notes.

The plan to blend the structure into the community worked almost too well. “The people who use it love it, but not everyone is aware,” says Walega. “The City is exploring signage and promotion to help people notice the garage and build their awareness.

Aesthetics

Precast brings the past to life

The tone that was set for the structure was a pedestrian-friendly appearance that would not offend casual visitors to the district. Very early in the programmatic stage, it was the wish of a previous city administration to introduce a 15,780-square-foot retail area to the first level of the garage with parking behind and four levels of parking above.

The precast façade solution offered a wide range of possibilities. A thin brick veneer was the obvious choice as to the prominent finish material due to the compatibility of nearby materials, leaving areas of the exposed concrete panel to act as limestone accents as seen in many of the existing structures in the area.

The exposed concrete took on the sense of limestone through the natural color. Its use as a continuous sill material for aluminum framed windows gives the structure its mixed use look. White finished aluminum framing minus the glazing simulates double hung windows. The linear limestone look adds to the horizontal appearance of the five level structure which helps to bring the building down to an appropriate scale. The window framing in the parking areas is void of any glazing material in order to meet code requirements for an open parking structure. Metal grids were installed in association with the window framing to also achieve the open parking structure requirements. The open grids are finished in colors similar to the adjacent brick colors.

This was achieved through the introduction of geometric shapes of exposed concrete to simulate the geometric limestone accent features of that time period, aluminum window framing finished in a copper finish at the first floor recalling many of the original copper finishes of the retail window framing.

Building Details

Elevations integrate with the vernacular

The primary façade on the east elevation along Grove Avenue was broken up into expressed structural bays through the column cladding while centrally located bays were covered in panels without any column expression to add to the diversity of the elevation. The elevation itself is not symmetrical. The difference in the widths of the two stair towers at north and south are expressed and the widths of the bays utilizing two different brick finishes differ from each other, further adding to the sense of diversity not only through geometry but also through color selection.

An exposed concrete knee wall matches the limestone knee wall construction of many of the buildings of the period. The knee wall was set back and angled inward in an alternating pattern to make the first level a little more appealing and inviting by opening up the area at the public sidewalk and to also mirror the pattern of the bases of the area structures.

The parapet walls of the upper level were designed to reflect the shapes and appearances of a typical parapet wall of a structure in the time frame being reflected. The use of geometric concrete shapes and brick patterns further recalled the limestone accents and brick configurations also present in those buildings. The same design for the parapets of the two stair towers were executed, though their finished heights are higher than the adjacent parking level and the window configurations are of the copper finished aluminum, this time with glazing. The appearance of the towers let the user know that they serve a function different than that of the parking areas.

The south elevation, though prominently viewed from the approaching street level, was treated differently through the use of colored precast panels, articulated to reflect the faux window pattern and divisions introduced on the primary façade. This was mostly done as a cost saving move. The color closely matches that of the lighter color brick of the front. Proximity to an adjacent residential structure dictated a lighter finish color.

The west and north elevations (the alley and lot line exposures, respectively) were finished off in the exposed concrete structure with an infill of split faced concrete block stained to match the two colors of the thin brick veneer. Exposed cast in place concrete was also stained and geometric accents were cast along the alley exposure to simulate the precast panel look of the primary front façade.